Modern Prophets and Apostles and NAR by Nick Maartens

Transcription

1 Modern Prophets and Apostles and NAR by Nick Maartens Introduction This document is about evaluating a mind-set which so often causes people to flippantly use the Name of God in speaking. It is also to examine some of the ministries that are having a huge influence on the direction the church as a whole is taking. Terms like God spoke to me and God showed me are commonly heard amongst many Christians. The first time that I realized that there was something seriously wrong with this type of subjective terminology was when Elsa and I got engaged. We got to know each other well during four years of teaching together at the same school. It eventually led to our engagement. After the announcement of our engagement one of the pastors of our church came to Elsa and said to her that he thought that we were making a mistake as he was praying with someone whom the Lord had shown to be my wife. Without knowing that one of his colleagues had already approached Elsa, another pastor came to us with the same revelation; he was praying with a different lady whom they believed the Lord had shown who was to be my wife. Without him knowing about the other two, a third pastor informed me that one of the ladies of the congregation had come to him saying that the Lord had shown her that I was to be her husband. To add to the confusion, when one of the pastors heard that we could not use the church hall for our wedding reception because of a double booking, he said: See! Confirmation that you must not get married! Remember, I am not talking about the leaders of a small church group in the backstreet of a small town. I m referring to pastors of the leading charismatic church in our country at that time. To be confronted by them was very intimidating! Surely, it could not have been God s will for me to have three wives. The success rate of this type of voice, interpreting subjective inner impressions as the voice of the Holy Spirit, is to shockingly low to accept that it is a reliable way that God speaks to us (See the chapter in my book, Beyond the Torn Veil on how to hear the voice of God). Yet, this type of mind-set is influencing many Christians today. The arrival of the big prophet As a pastor I had the opportunity of ministering on the same platform as Bill Hamon who is an influential modern prophet. In front of a crowd of a few thousand people, he taught us how to prophesy. He said to me that by faith, I just had to speak out whatever thoughts came into my mind. Today, having more knowledge of spiritual principles, I realize what a dangerous thing that was to do. In this way you can open yourself up to be influenced by demons. I remind you of Jesus who rebuked the devil for the thought that he had injected into Peter s mind (Matt.16:23). It was on this occasion that Bill Hamon prophesied that our congregation would have 20,000 members by the year In 1986 I resigned from our church because I could no longer go along with some of the teachings and methods that were being followed. (You will find more details of these teachings in my book Beyond the

2 Torn Veil). In 1990, to be fair, I made an appointment with the leaders of my former church in order to find out whether the prophecy had come true. It had not! Not even closely. In my files I have transcriptions of prophecies by Bill Hamon concerning my own life. As an example of how he and other modern prophets put words in God s mouth, I quote the introduction to one of them: And the Lord God would say, son, I saw you where you were The whole prophecy gets spoken out in the first person, present tense, singular, meaning it is as if God Himself is doing the speaking. The phrases I am going to and Let Me are used repeatedly in this way. Most of the things that were prophesied about me and the institution I was in, were not fulfilled, and as result of the radical changes that have taken place over the years, there is no possibility that they can. Some of the key role players in some of his prophecies, do not even live anymore. I can think of many positive things that were predicted about our organisation, but nobody was prepared for the tragic events to come. Two ministers died at a relatively young age, one tragically in a motorcar accident. The wife of one of the remaining leaders shared with us how, after a Sunday meeting in which her husband had preached to a few thousand people, she had caught him in adultery with another woman. During my time as pastor I ministered with men like Benny Hinn, Kenneth Copeland, Nicky van der Westhuizen and others. I therefore have first hand knowledge of the things I am writing about. In a meeting in which I was present, a well-known prophet still active today, prophesied that 1996 would be the year in which a great revival in Africa would change the world! The list of false prophecies I personally know of is too long to mention in one writing! The implications for South Africa today On Rick Joyner s website, Morningstar Ministries, it is advertised that he would be ministering at Neville Norden s Living Word church in Pretoria as from 25 to 27 July, With him will be Angus Buchan, Danie Slabbert and T.E.Mzedzi. Who is Rick Joyner? Rick Joyner is associated with the Kansas City Prophets, Paul Cain, Bob Jones and Mike Bickle. Paul Cain has already been discredited because he falsely predicted that there would be a revival in London during a certain year. It never happened (Olathe Daily News, 31 November, 1991). Mike Bickle, with men like Kenneth Hagin, Kenneth Copeland, Benny Hinn, Earl Paulk and others, believe that we are little gods. My first experience of this false teaching was in a meeting where Casey Treat made us chant: We are gods, We are gods Rick Joyner endorses the ministries of these men. A recent scandal took place when Tod Bentley of the Lakeland Revival in Florida, was involved in an adulterous relationship with one of his co-workers, Jessa Hasbrook. He left his wife Shonnah and married Jessa (Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia). His own colleagues insisted that he should stop ministering because he did not qualify anymore, but in spite of this, he was reinstated as an apostle. This was done by two of the leaders of NAR (New Apostolic Reformation), Peter Wagner and Rick Joyner (Midnight Horror Show, Pete and the Pagans, Youtube).

3 In his books Rick Joyner makes the one bizarre statement after the other. Neither does he give an explanation or apologize for any false prophecies. His predictions in the late 90 s about the confusion that would occur on earth because of 2YK, never happened. Consider the following quotation from Rick Joyner s MorningStar Prophetic Bulletin #5: On May 16, 1993 I had a vision of racial violence erupting in South Africa on an unprecedented level. Whites were killing blacks and blacks were killing whites by the thousands. The government completely lost its authority and there was anarchy throughout the nation. Whites and blacks would kill each other by the thousands... The killing was so widespread throughout the country that the United Nations expressed helplessness, confessing that the situation had deteriorated beyond anyone s ability to intervene to bring order and stop the killing (ttps:// ( Also, of the vague things that he predicted that would happen in America during the Blood Moons, nothing realized. Here are some of his other declarations: "What is about to come upon the earth is not just a revival, or another awakening; it is a veritable revolution. The vision was given in order to begin to awaken those who are destined to radically change the course, and even the very definition of Christianity " (Rick Joyner, The Harvest, "Joel s Army", My emphasis). "In the near future we will not be looking back at the early church with envy because of the great exploits of those days, but all will be saying that He certainly did save His best wine for last. The most glorious times in all history have not come upon us. You, who have dreamed of one day being able to talk with Peter, John and Paul, are going to be surprised to find that they have all been waiting to talk to you." (Rick Joyner, The Harvest, Pineville, NC, MorningStar, 1990, page 9). Miracles which exceed even some of the most spectacular biblical marvels will cause whole nations to acknowledge Jesus.... The appearances of angels will be so common that they will cease to be related as significant events. The Lord Himself will appear to councils of apostles and elders to give them directives. (Rick Joyner, The Harvest, page 33, My emphasis). In his book, The Final Quest, he writes that God spoke to him and said that criticism is Satan s ultimate deception. Rick Joyner and his associates are caught up in the false teaching of dominionism or as it is also called, Kingdom Now. They proclaim that the church will take over the world and make it an utopia. They will then invite Jesus back. They also prophesy that the wealth of the world will be transferred to the church. I sat in a meeting where Bill Hamon explained that it had just been revealed to him that Jesus would stay in heaven and not come back to earth until everything down here had been restored and put into order by the church. The following can be read on Rick Joyner s website where his new book is being advertised: Army of the Dawn is both a prophecy and a training manual. It is written to inform, inspire, and provide practical instruction for those who are

4 called to follow the King and turn an upside down world right side up (my emphasis). ( Sadly, this doctrine has swept through the church, causing much excitement amongst a new type of Christian who believes that the church can change everything on earth by taking dominion over Satan. This forms the basis for a new, militant type of Christian who tolerate no critism or correction. This doctrine is erroneous. The Bible teaches that God is going to restore everything on earth through Jesus when He comes back, not the church. This is confirmed by a scripture such as Phil. 3:20-21: But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a saviour from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that we will be like his glorious body (my emphasis). This truth of Jesus having to come back to restore everything is even taught in the Old Testament:..the horn was waging war against the saints and defeating them, until the Ancient of Days came and pronounced judgement in favour of the saints of the Most High, and the time came when they possessed the kingdom (Daniel 7:21-22, My emphasis). The Dominion teachers ignore clear Biblical guidelines in some of their declarations and prophesies. In contrast to what the Bible says, they prophesy and teach that the world will experience a great endtime revival like never experienced on earth before. The Bible, however, predicts the opposite: There will be terrible times in the last days People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God (2 Timothy 3:1-5). In verse thirteen of the same chapter we read that evil men and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived (My emphasis). Does this sound as if there is going to be a big revival? The opposite of what the Kingdom-Now teachers prophesy is predicted by Scripture. It is saddening to see that some of the things that are mentioned in these verses are the very things being promoted as doctrines in the church today the love for self is promoted under the guise of self-esteem, the love for money is encouraged by the teachings of the Prosperity gospel and a lack of self control leads to drunkenness in the spirit and people acting like animals! Rick Joyner speaks of a Joel s Army who will not make war on the heathen, but on those Christians who appose their visions and who keep on quoting Scripture. The Scriptures alone are used for establishing doctrine, while the voice of the Lord is used to give us dayto-day guidance as well as revealing the strategic will of the Lord. (Rick Joyner, The Morning Star Prophetic Bulletin, May, 1996) They interpret their subjective thoughts as the voice of God. (Read the chapter in my book, Beyond the Torn Veil on how to hear the voice of God). In contrast to what Rick Joyner says that True faith can only come with spiritual vision, the Bible teaches that faith comes by the hearing of God s Word (Rom.10:17). The teachers and prophets of this prophetic movement totally ignore the accepted principles of hermeneutics and make everything in the Bible fit in with their own vision of taking over the world. A report of the New Millennium Apostolic Council of Prophetic

5 Elders reads as follows: This move of God will be so powerful that the church will gather in stadiums to worship, both the church in given regions as well as some local churches which will grow so large that they will fill stadiums for their celebration worship services. The Government of God s kingdom will be established through the apostolic and prophetic authorities in cities and nations. We will see tremendous transfers of wealth into the Kingdom of God through the ministry of market apostles (those with apostolic anointing for business and other areas of society). Is this emphasis on big Christian crowds the result of Rick Warren s influence who calls the church the greatest force on earth? He makes this deduction by stating that there are more than two billion Christians on earth! Can spiritual deductions be made by quoting numerical statistics? (pastors.com/8-reasonschurch-greatest-force-earth). Believers should pray for the gift of discernment so that they will be able to evaluate their leaders according to Biblical Truth so that the indiscriminate emphasis on numbers will not one day play into the hands of the anti-christ who is going to deceive many and who is eventually going to set up his own kingdom here on earth (2 Thess.2:9-12). As result of this utopia on earth expectation, many Christians are not spiritually being prepared for the difficult times that Scripture warns are to come (2 Tim.3:1-5, Joh.16:33, Matt.13:21). Conclusion Now the important question must be asked: What is Rick Joyner doing in Neville Norden s church and why is Angus Buchan ministering with them? Also, does the fact that Angus associates with Rodney Howard Browne (a leader in the false Laughing Revival, the Toronto Blessing) mean that he endorses this man s ministry? ( Is it through ignorance that they are guilty through association or do they agree with these men? In my possession is an advert in which some popular preachers endorse and promote the Purpose Driven books of Rick Warren. I sent some of them my article in which I point out how Rick Warren twists Scripture to suit his purposes. One of the men promoting Rick Warren s books, sent me a letter in which he confessed that he himself had not yet read Warren s books! This makes me wonder whether Neville and Angus have read Rick Joyner s books? (Some of Rick Joyner s bizarre revelations can be found in his books: The Harvest, The Final Quest, The Call and The Hordes of Hell are Marching (They can be downloaded from the internet). Have you read them? Rick Joyner and company explain their failures in prophecy by saying that New Testament prophets need not be 100% accurate, because they say they are still learning % accuracy is enough (The Prophetic Ministry, The Morning Star Prophetic Newsletter, Rick Joyner, Vol. 3, No. 2, page 4). If their inspiration comes from God, as their terminology implies, they must be 100% accurate, because God does not make mistakes. Or they must stop intimidating gullible Christians by their subjective stories and anecdotes in the Name of the Almighty.

6 We are now confronted with a dilemma; we either accept Rick Joyner and his friends as super apostles, or expose them for what they are, false ones! In the Old Testament it was a very serious thing to speak forth false prophecies. False prophets had to be stoned (Deut. 18:20). Today we may not do that, but we are commanded to test all their pronouncements (1 Cor.14:29). Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world (1 John 4:1). Nick Maartens Langenhovenpark, Bloemfontein, E mail: Website: